Riding shotgun with Delilah on the curvy road of redemption...

 Well, another week behind me - thank goodness.

I'm up early this morning, first cup of coffee and listening to a live album by Gary Clark Jr.
As I've grown older I've noticed my taste in music has changed significantly. Granted I still like to listen to heavy fast riffs and vocals, but I'm now leaning way more towards the newer blues of the day. Much slower and laid back. I guess the change in pace is kinda therapeutic and calms me from this stressful hell.
Mornings are my favorite time of day. I love looking out my window as the world awakens. Usually the crows are the first to start moving, This morning it's the family of deer that I have grown used to. I know each one. There were 6 before hunting season, now there's 5. I guess it happens that way. I notice 2 of them are sporting some huge bellies. It looks as if they'll drop a few fawns any time now.
Mornings are nice because it's so quiet  As I've gotten older, one of the things that I just abhor about prison is the noise. The non stop yelling, rapping, doors opening, whistles blowing, doors shutting...just a non stop relentless random cacophony of noise. If it weren't for music I'm sure I would have succumbed to the insanity of my reality years ago.
I'm reminded of when I was younger riding in the van with my mom. I'd always turn the radio to the station I liked...she hated! 'that's not music, that's just noise", she would say. Her station was the one that played 'Delilah'.. ugh! To me that was noise. Super soft love songs. Ugh. Nothing worse to a kid than being forced to not only ride in the front seat of your mom's minivan, but to also be strapped in by a seat belt and force fed Delilah radio. Talk about torture. Give me the rubber hose any day please.

And the worst embarrassment...I remember mom was like 23 months pregnant. Big as a Zeppelin blimp. I'm 18 and a senior in high school. My truck was in the shop, so mom comes to pick me up from school. As I leave the front doors with my friends I hear someone yelling, ''Greg Rupe, Gregory Rupe''!
Lo and Behold there is mom. Hands on her hips, stomach sticking out into the next time zone, leaning against the front of the minivan, waving her arms.
And to top it off...the windows are down - Delilah is playing loud enough for her to receive a citation for noise pollution.
Although it was embarrassing at the moment I'll never forget the happiness on moms face. The enjoyment she was receiving from her well planned and executed assault on my dignity.
Man did I get it at school the next day.
No bueno mom.

Funny how small things bring up the most forgotten memories. I have to be the most sentimental person I know but I think the biggest reason is because I was blessed with such a good childhood and teen years, as well as wonderful parents and family. As I've gotten to know most people in here, my empathy for them has grown a lot. Most never really had a childhood. No father. Most with mothers that were drug addicts. They are victims of a broken education system, and a corrupt legal system that sees us as dollars and not human beings.
With all the movements of the day calling for change, I personally see a fundamental flaw in all of them. They all call for change in our broken system but no real plan. They shame one another for their points of view or how they were raised and expect the victims to apologize. Wow! What a Democratic free society we live in! You can be free, believe what you want, have freedom of speech, have your own personal beliefs just as long as they don't offend anyone.
Yet the biggest change would be in the future...with education. We as Americans have fallen behind the rest of the world so much in education it will take generations to catch back up, We should invest in that future and defund this non stop revolving door of locking away our youth, our men and women, then releasing them to the world with absolutely no life skills, and when they fail, locking them back up again. It's just ridiculous!
America has the highest prison population in the world... think about that. We have what, 350 million people... China, a communist regime has over a billion...We have more prisoners than communist China!!! India has over a billion people and governed by a caste system that does whole heartedly promote racism, and even they have a smaller prison population.
Think about that.
Texas alone houses more inmates than the most of the top ten prison populations in the world, including Iran. Iran!!!
Wow!...what a wonderful democracy of free people we are.
Sorry, about that...I try to not let my emotions about this overly corrupt system spill over to you... but it happens.
Why don't you take it on yourself and research just which elites make money from the penal system. Check out the Bob Barker company, owned by the Bush family, or Keefe commissary, or the private prison system and see who receives the profit from my incarceration, I'm only an inmate by title, I'm actually a dollar sign.
Here's a fun fact...still don't think prison is only business. Check out the last three major prisons built in Virginia. The municipality paid for the water works even gave the land up, but a contract was signed stating that the prison would always be at 96% bed capacity. Wow!...
Check it out....River North Corr. ctr., Pocahontas Corr., and Green Rock Corr.
Each housing roughly 1000 inmates.

PRISON REFORM?